A few images of interest (to me anyway)

The first is a small reptile that we occasionally see (and Tammy always looks forbeside our drive.  It was catching some rays early in the morning ...
 ... until I disturbed it and it bolted back under its rock.
With temperatures approaching 40C for the last few days I would rate under a nice shady rock as a Good Place to be.
A couple of days later as I was returning from a run (fortunately with my camera in my bumbag) I saw the dragon again.  Initially I thought it was wrapped around a bit of fallen bark.  When it moved I realised the bark was in fact a skin being shed.
I'm not sure if this is simply a growth mechanism or if, like a member of the Barmy Army, they take their shirts off when it gets hot.

This morning myself and my friends Julienne and Garry went for a prowl through some woodland and  along a treeline above the Hoskinstown Plain.  As we started off it was quite exciting to hear the unmistakable calls of Painted Honeyeaters.  I didn't manage to catch an image of them, but they will be my Bird of the Day.

A bit further along we came across a pair of Dollarbirds.  One of them was very aggressive - I thought I was going to need surgery to remove it from my nose at one point - but we didn't see them enter a hollow or feed young.  A Sacred Kingfisher was much more polite in posing.

The Acacia pravissima (Ovens Wattle) along our drive is now dropping seed all over the ground (should that making it Acacia onanii?).  This is a matter of some joy to the Common Bronzewings which wander along like beautiful vacuum cleaners.
The colour of the forehead shows this to be a male.

A couple of days later I was getting some water from the puddle in the Creek and noticed a skink (possibly a Delicate Skink Lampropholis delicata) being less timid than usual.  On looking closely it was apparent that it had followed the example of the Spider wasp and decided that arachnid was the go for brunch.


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